Is Lawsuit About Defamation, Or Shutting Up The Right?

A battle over race, fraud, and character will be decided in a District of Columbia Superior Court, and the outcome threatens to chill a fledgling conservative movement, observers say.

Shirley Sherrod, a former Obama administration official, is suing new media mogul Andrew Breitbart for igniting a political firestorm she claims burned her good name and inflicted emotional distress.

But Breitbart, who runs several conservtive websites, and congressional supporters say the action is a nuisance lawsuit that is funded by liberals to squelch constitutionally protected free speech and conservative voices.


The drama initially unfolded last summer as a new Tea Party came to power amid cries of racism from the Left.

Breitbart sought to rebuff the claims by airing a video of a speech given by Sherrod that he said showed positive reactions to racism and discrimination against a white farmer by members of one of the Left’s most valuable allies, the NAACP.

Although Sherrod says the tape was heavily edited and that her speech was meant to instruct against racism, retribution from within her own ranks was swift, and she says she was fired after a call from the White House was made to her employer at the Agriculture Department.

Although she was later offered a better job within the agency, Sherrod declined to accept it and seven months later is suing Breitbart for damages.

Sherrod has declined to speak on the civil action publicly, but in a written statement said, “This lawsuit is not about politics or race.  It is not about right versus left, the NAACP, or the Tea Party.  It is about how quickly, in today's Internet media environment, a person's good name can become collateral damage in an overheated political debate,” Sherrod said.

But Breitbart says it’s no longer about any of that.

It’s all about Pigford, he says.

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